My Japanese Learning Journey

15 Sep, 2024

It is currently 20:18 15/09/24 and it's my second day (day 0) learning Japanese.
I'd just like to chronicle my japanese learning journey both on my blog and on my youtube channel.

Day -1

On the first day I got my immersion materials set up. So I got a podcast like "Nihongo con Teppei" (both the beginner and intermediate versions) and my yomitan setup working.
I went through the Kaishi 1.5k anki deck and got my youtube account setup.

At first I was pretty confused on what to rely on for grammar but the same 2 names kept appearing.

• Cure Dolly
• Tae Kim's Guide to learning Japanese

I'd already tried to learn japanese before so I knew that there was an anki deck based off of Tae Kim's Guide here.
That was pretty much everything from day -1

Day 0

On day 0 I did a lot more. I have a backlog of anime to watch. A way to create condensed audio and I've started my own mining deck at 60 or so known words.
I'm rewatching bloom into you and it's not at all as comprehensible in the same way it was when I watched in German but it's still very fun.
Before I forget, this is what I already knew before this latest attempt in learning Japanese:

• Numbers up to 7 because of Naruto
• watashi, boku - because i've read too many manga where people swap bodies and have to get used to saying the other
• nani? - Whenever I see: nande, nani, nandeska or something along those lines I kinda know it probably means what
• kore and sore - this and that i already sort of knew from the core 2k,6k. I kept dropping the core 2k/6k but I find the Kaishi 1.5k to be much better.
  If finding it incredibly difficult to get the hang on kore,sore,are,dore. I keep getting them mixed up.
• the no particle - の I sort of knew from boku NO hero academia. It feels very similar to the genitive case in German or "de" in Portuguese. I feel it connects two nouns?

I also made a few connections even with my limited vocab. They may be wrong but I'm scrounging round in the dark here.
I was watching a video on the channel "Ari no yume" and since I'm guessing Ari is a name. The channel might translate to Ari's dream and I thought that was pretty cool.
As for why I was watching this channel, I wanted a rough idea of what reading a book would be like.
I did 52 min of active listening with more passive listening which I'll track tomorrow.
Overall Grammar / 10.

Week 1

Day 1

I made a youtube video for Day 1 2 hours 22 min Free Flow

Day 2

Got in a bit less input today : 1 hour and 37 minutes, but my goal is at least 1 hour 30 minutes every day (at least for the first week).
I learnt more grammar and the difference between は, が and を (which is represented in romaji as "wo" but sound like "o" to me).
Japanese is comforting.

Day 3

I learned how to mine from manga using mokuro and google colab. At first I used my computer but it took literal hours for one volume of One Piece therefore I endeavored to figure out how to streamline the process on someone else's computers.
I followed this guide and now I can mind from manga on linux.
I'll probably pull out an old windows laptop for VNs (Visual Novels).
Free Flow: 35:45s

Day 4

Cure Dolly is really the best.
I've come to realise that I need at least 2 different anime:

• a home anime
• a school anime

I need an anime that is acceptable to watch at school and an anime I'll be watching at home. I've chosen Bananya and Shirokuma Cafe as the school anime and
Bloom into You as the home anime. This will make it easier to immerse at school without getting weird looks. I didn't immerse nearly enough today and my sleep schedule is all over the place. Free Flow: 20 min I think the missing key in my past attempts at learning Japanese was not realising the importance of structure (grammar as the GOAT Cure Dolly 先生 puts it), grammar instruction has made sentences much more comprehensible.

Day 5

31 min Active
40 min Passive

Day 6

42 min Free Flow

Day 7

Lots of Active immersion done today. I deep dived into grammar.
1 hour 46 min Active

Week 2

Day 8

Spent a lot of my time asleep. Didn't even finish anki. I also started Tae Kim's Guide 40 min Free Flow

Day 9

Mostly Grammar study. 3 min Free Flow

Day 10

Obvious passive immersion times have been inserted. Actually going to sleep at a reasonable time, because I actually set a timer for my hw.
Pomodoro this, pomodoro that, why did I stop doing pomodoro's.
I need to watch more anime, I only have 2 episodes of passive immersion, I think I'll go back to nihongo con teppei. 1 hour 16 min: free flow In terms of tracking time. I don't track unfocused passive immersion, only quite focused passive immersion. I don't think walking is that distracting, but talking with friends is, so I track that as white noising.

Day 11

2 hours 40 min Free Flow

Day 12

N/A

Day 13

1 hour 1 min of free flow with angel beats I'm really enjoying the music and the action. It's fun to see how fun a show can be even if I barely understand the dialogue

Day 14

Free flow - 4 min School is hard

Week 3

Day 15

Tae Kim's grammar guide is confusing.
Finally restarted my anki.
I took it easy a few days, but I want to understand more of "Nihongo con Teppei" so more anki is the answer.